Archive for the ‘Quotes’ Category
Limbaugh, unhappiest, most miserable person alive? Perhaps
According to a recent U.S. News & World Report story, conservative talk show commentator and Christian Broadcasting Network founder Pat Robertson criticized Rush Limbaugh’s comments, heard here:
in which Limbaugh said he wished, not only for the stimulus plan to fail, but also for Obama himself to fail in the presidency. We know Limbaugh to be obnoxious and so irrationally conservative that he can’t see straight — and often, downright mean — but he said during this interview with Sean Hannity that he hoped Barack Obama failed in his presidency IF he threw out Bush’s tax cuts and signed on to many traditional “liberal” policies.
Here, in a clipping from the U.S. News & World Report article, Robertson, when asked,
So you don‘t subscribe to Rush Limbaugh‘s “I hope he fails“ school of thought?
said,
That was a terrible thing to say. I mean, he’s the president of all the country. If he succeeds, the country succeeds. And if he doesn’t, it hurts us all. Anybody who would pull against our president is not exactly thinking rationally.
Some, like a fellow who named himself “ from Indiana” on the U.S. News & World Report Web site, have claimed the criticism of Limbaugh was ill-conceived:
Limbaugh has to be the most miserable person on the planet. The policies he would like to see enacted are anachronistic and inadequate, and he probably knows it. That’s likely why he sounds so mad all the time. Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathon is probably overkill, but we need big plans, not small ones. We need big thoughts and big ideas, not more of the same. More of the same has run this economy downward. Tax cuts for the rich have gotten us nowhere because the rich care about one thing, and believe me, it’s not about helping those below them on the economic social ladder. They care about getting richer and holding on to their precious treasures. The bank debacle proves as much. The automaker execs flying into Washington on private jets proves it again. We hear Limbaugh’s passion. Heck, he should come down to earth and use some of that passion to help get things done for folks who are hurting, but he would be unwilling. He’s not hurting, and he’s got two decades of broadcasting vested and wrapped up in the alternate view.
Quote of the day: Dec. 28, 2008
I’m currently reading Thomas Paine’s “The Age of Reason.” Phillip Foner, in his biographical introduction to Paine’s widely read work said this of Paine’s hunger for learning, despite the “meagre education” he received at Thetford Grammar School:
He continued his process of self-education throughout hsi life, convinced that ‘every person of learning is finally his own teacher.’ ‘I seldom passed five minutes of my life however circumstanced,’ he once observed, ‘in which I did not acquire some knowledge.’
Note: I thought it might be interesting to keep a running log of some of the better quotes from my personal reading each day (or as often as I can.) This is the first such post.
Quote of the day: Dec. 26, 2008
Note: This is not to suggest I’m going to begin posting quotes I find every single day. (Though I may) I do have a life, you know, albeit, not much of one.
The hinting and intimidating manner of writing that was formerly used on subjects of this kind [religion], produced skepticism, but not conviction. It is necessary to be bold. Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold thing that will stagger them, and they will begin to think. — Thomas Paine / Letter written to Elihu Palmer
But in the radio sound clip above, Limbaugh clearly and in his signature bombastic style said, “I want everything he’s doing to fail.”
In the interview with Hannity, of course, he said the same thing, with the caveat that he supported Obama IF he enacted or maintained good conservative principles, but if Obama enacted and sought to maintain liberal principles, like supporting women’s rights, reversing Bush’s tax cuts, etc, he hoped Obama failed. He outright said he hoped the stimulus package failed. The rub is that Limbaugh knows Obama (though he claims the contrary), and he knows Obama’s not going to go against his own principles. He’s going to run the country as he thinks it needs to be run, that is, in the liberal framework. Thus, Limbaugh literally was saying he hoped Obama would fail, both generally and specifically. It wasn’t taken out of context, and the word “everything” wasn’t supposed to just mean Obama’s ”social agenda,” but all of his policies.
Though I certainly don’t agree with Robertson on most points, I do agree with him that Limbaugh was off base saying he hoped Obama failed. If Obama fails, we are in a world of trouble. If the stimulus package fails, we are in a world of trouble. Limbaugh’s multiple repetitions, “He is my president,” mean nothing. If he was your president, Rush, you would get behind him, at least until your party gets another attempt at the White House because if he fails, what does that mean? More chaos in the Middle East? Another attack on the country? A second Great Depression? If he fails, you may not have the ability to keep your radio show. You might end up in a soup kitchen with the rest of us.
Two interesting notes from the Hannity interview: